


my blood is singing with your voice

by aceofdiamonds



Series: soulmates au [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: It's not that they hate each other, it's just that, to put it diplomatically, the way his father always does: they're very different people. For all that he trusts the gods' judgement, he's not sure he understands this one. sansa is jon's soulmate and jon adjusts his life accordingly





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a companion to the soulmates au i wrote last year, this time from jon's perspective. even after reading the books and studying his wiki page i still don't really know what goes on in jon's storyline tbh so if things are murky and skipped over, that's why. this was interesting to write, i've never written like a companion thing before really. title is from howl by florence and the machine because i love her. i might do more with this verse.

  


Jon's something of a romantic at heart. It's something you wouldn't guess about him and it's something you don't want to advertise around Theon, so he keeps it quiet.  
  
He loves the idea of soulmates, that two people have been bound by the gods, their destinies foreseen long before they arrive on earth. But also, he loves the times when it doesn't work out with the ones the gods have chosen and instead have followed whatever else their heart is telling them. It happened with his father, not only with his mother, but with Lady Stark, too. Those are stories of people following different paths than those predetermined and become all the happier for it.  
  
Despite these strayings, he can't help but follow Sansa's almost obsessive need to find out what name he has on his wrist and the possible ways it will shape his future.

  
  
.

  
  
It's a shock, then, when on the afternoon of his eleventh name-day (he saved it for the afternoon, when his cake was finished and he was alone) he unwinds the cloth on his wrist and it's Sansa's neat handwriting etched into his skin. He knows there are a few Brans and probably a number of Robbs, Jons, and Rickons, and even a couple of other Aryas but as far as he knows, in this tiny part of the world, there is only one Sansa. Another flaw in his first steps of denial is that he recognises the careful curves of the _s_ s and the controlled swoop of the _n_ .  
  
Lady Stark isn't going to like this. And neither is Sansa, come to that. It's not that they hate each other, it's just that, to put it diplomatically the way his father always does: they're very different people. For all that he trusts the gods' judgement, he's not sure he understands this one.  
  
He covers his name back up and when Robb bounds over and asks how the unveiling went he fiddles with the untidy knot and mumbles something about it sounding Southern, not anyone they know.  
  
Later at supper, he catches Sansa's eye and smiles. Sansa, always the lady, returns it without thinking, catching herself and frowning with confusion.  
  
Jon smiles into his stew.

 

  
.

 

 

Nothing shifts until Sansa’s nameday, when she turns eleven and her mark is shown to her, and maybe that should have given Jon a clue but he’s spent the last three years turning over the thought of his half-sister completing his soul and the horror connotations that come with that that any contact with Sansa at all is enough to make him sit up straighter and take what he gets.

“Sansa won't show me her mark,” Arya whines, dropping onto the bench beside the armoury.

“Thought you didn't care about marks,” Jon replies. “Thought you said you were never going to look for yours,” he teases.

“That's still true,” Arya says defiantly. “But Sansa’s being weird about hers so now I want to know.”

“She must want to keep it private,” Jon says lightly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, and willing his mind not to go into overdrive. Lots of people keep their marks to themselves, unless you're Robb, who hasn’t covered his wrist since the day Jeyne’s name appeared there (although not Jeyne Poole, after a bout of confusion, a hasty rejection, and a pile of relief on Sansa’s side). If Jon has a smidgen of romance on the inside Sansa wears her heart on her sleeve and Jon can tell she has notions of keeping the name hidden from everyone apart from the eyes of her other half.

“I bet she's just upset cause it's not Prince Joffrey,” Arya says, draws out the e, flutters her eyes, and then slumps with a glare. She perks up again immediately. “Who’s yours, Jon?"

“Prince Joffrey,” Jon says, quick, and that's enough to distract her into a mix of disgust and giggles.

“Even he wouldn't be unlucky enough to get Sansa as a mate,” Arya sighs, occasional annoyance at her sister still trumping the politics of Westeros. This will change, and she might even regret what she said, if she ever remembered it, but for now, Sansa is the worst possible person to be bound to in Arya’s eyes.

Jon fiddles with his covering, makes sure it's tied tight enough, covers all the loops of Sansa’s intricate signature.

“Sansa’s not so bad,” he says, because she's been civil to him recently, including him in a discussion about a book she read, even siding with him in a sibling-wide argument at the river last week. This is what being a lady means: treating everyone with respect, even bastard half-brothers.

Arya has nothing to say to this. Instead she rolls her eyes, gathers up her things, and jerks her head. “You coming? I can hear Father and Robb coming back. Robb’ll be up for a fight.”

“Maybe if you and Robb team up you'll be able to beat me for once,” Jon laughs, following her.

On the way they pass Sansa whispering with Jeyne. Sansa pulls away from the gossip to wave at Jon and Arya.

“See?” Jon says, far too triumphant in proving himself right. “She's a lady now.”

 

.

 

“Over here!” Bran shouts on the way back after Father executes a traitor from the Night’s Watch. Jon thinks about the men who protect the Seven Kingdoms from the wildlings and whatever else is over the Wall. In theory it sounds a noble position, one that would be taken up by knights and princes in the fairy tales Sansa loves so much, but in practice it’s a half-trained army made of criminals and those with nowhere else to go. As they grow older and Robb begins to be shaped into his future role of Lord Stark and Warden of the North, Jon can’t help but wonder if he’ll end up in the second category. Up there he might have more a purpose rather than a Stark bastard with his half-sister’s name burned onto his wrist. “Come here!” Bran calls again before Jon can make any life-changing decisions.

Despite his faith in soulmates and his visits to the godswood for the Old Gods, Jon doesn't believe in other forms of fate. But then six direwolves puppies are found, one for each of the Stark children, and that includes Jon too.

Lady Stark makes the valid point that, “They’re direwolves, Arya. They’ll grow into vicious beasts,” when Arya makes the argument that they’re their sigil. But then she softens, can never say no to her children, and concedes that, “Perhaps they’ll be useful for protection.”

At this everyone moves away with their pup leaving Jon alone with Sansa who hasn’t been given hers yet. Jon scoops up the final puppy in the makeshift basket of cloths and hands it to her, a rush of eagerness at seeing her face bloom into delight. “She's yours, Sansa.”

“Oh! She's lovely,” Sansa gasps, holding her puppy up in front of her. Her whole face lights up, any practice at being a lady forgotten, and Jon knows that it was worth it. She looks over the puppy at Jon, still smiling and smiling. “Did you get one, Jon?”

“Yeah, he's right here.” Jon brings his puppy out from under his furs. He's tiny, found away from the rest of them, and he's shock-white, an almost unnatural shade, as though one of the Gods reached down and made him that way after he was born to make him stand out from the rest. “I’m going to name him Ghost.”

But Sansa isn't listening anymore. She strokes her hand over the puppy’s face, engrossed in the way it snuffles and curls into her. “This is Lady,” she decides, more to herself than to Jon but Jon makes a noise of agreement anyway. Lady fits.

The contentment dissipates quickly when Sansa looks up from her pup and seems to realise who she’s been left with. She swallows a few times, looks something like reluctant, and then snaps out a thinly-veiled comment about being different and the horrors associated with that.

It’s not that Jon expected things to be different with Sansa on his wrist but she’s been cautiously nicer to him recently -- probably a fluke.

 

.

 

“It wasn’t Jon’s fault,” Sansa says during an argument over who spilled the bucket of water across the first floor corridor.

“Who was it then, Sansa?” Lady Stark asks, looking as confused as the rest of their siblings.

“Probably Arya,” Sansa accuses, coming over to stand beside Jon. “I was with Jon in the sept earlier so it couldn’t have been him.”

“You blame me for everything!” Arya protests, finger pointing. Lady Stark casts her eyes above, no doubt wishing she hadn’t started the investigation.

As the squabbling continues between the siblings without an alibi, Jon shuffles his feet, turns towards Sansa. “Thanks for that.”

“For what? It was the truth. Bet you it was Arya.”

“If it’s not what’ll happen?” Jon pushes his luck.

But Sansa looks up at him, eyes twinkling. “If I’m right you have to clear out Lady’s things tomorrow -- she’s been messy this week, rolling in dirt, spilling her food, disgusting.”

“Fine,” Jon agrees. “But if it’s anyone else but Arya you have to sit next to Theon every night this week at supper and look interested in what he’s saying.”

Sansa opens her mouth to protest but stops at Jon’s grin. “Fine.”

(It was Arya, it was revealed after far too long and an infinite amount of patience on Lady Stark’s part. Jon cleans up the greatly-exaggerated mess in Lady’s section of the stone room as Ghost and Lady wrestle by his side. Sansa thanks him with a grin.)

 

.

 

  
"They don't care about names at Castle Black," Uncle Benjen tells him and that settles it.

As the Starks scatter across the Seven Kingdoms, Jon says goodbye to his siblings, hugs Bran in his bed, pulls Rickon into his arms, claps Robb on the back, and ruffles Arya’s hair. Catelyn inclines her head to him and he returns the favour, an understanding between them that Jon doesn't quite get yet but appreciates.

“Good luck at the Wall, son,” Father says, a heavy hand on his shoulder. Jon nods under the pressure. “We’ll see you again soon, I hope, when Robert comes to his senses and sends me back North. Respect the Night’s Watch, Jon, and you’ll find it not as bad as you might think.”

“I’m not scared, Father,” Jon lies.

Ned Stark smiles, a movement that shifts his face into that of a younger man, one not burdened by responsibility and the memories of those past. Jon has been told time and time again how much Stark he has within him but it’s now, with his Father’s eyes on him and his every belief that he’ll be okay at this, that he really sees it. “You’re going to grow up into a fine man, Jon,” he says, gruff, and then he pulls him against him in a quick hug.

“Thank you, Father,” Jon replies, returning the smile but reading the moment and not adding on how much he’ll miss him, a sentiment he only confessed to sleeping Bran, tiny Rickon, and a demanding Arya.

As Father turns away, Jon makes his way towards his horse -- he catches Sansa’s eye across the courtyard. She's been different with him recently. There had been a conversation in the sept about soulmates that had felt bigger than what either of them were both saying and not saying.

They both raise a hand, a courteous goodbye from a childhood of playing princesses and knights and squabbling over everything. The last year or so has been a taste of their places in the real world outside of Winterfell -- they are indifferent, civil, and it’s what Jon expected when he woke up on his eleventh nameday with her name on his arm.

The family scatters and Jon takes off for the Wall and a life of black and loneliness. Sansa will marry Joffrey, soulmates be damned. This is the way it's meant to be.

 

.

 

Jon barely has time to adjust to life as a steward before he’s saving Lord Commander Mormont’s life and burning his hand half off for the trouble. In return he is gifted a sword he names Longclaw, a weapon made of Valyrian steel and worlds above anything Jon ever expected to wield.

His hand burns and burns but he starts wearing gloves and that covers up the wrapping on his wrist and that stops all the sneers at him caring about who sees his soulmark and all the sneers about caring about his soulmark at all.

Jon swings his sword -- it brings something to him he’s never felt before. There’s a power here that he thinks he likes. It comes down silently, sharp through the snow.

Ghost looks up at him, eyes knowing. Jon’s hand cards through his fur. With his sword that is half Stark, half something else, just like him, he leans on symbolism and he makes a resolution to do what he can with the power he has. There’s going to be a lot of that.

 

.

 

Up here, on the edge of Westeros, everything feels detached, a world away from politics and the renewal of kings. Then Father is killed and Jon forgets why he ever wanted to come North in the first place. He mounts his horse, brings Ghost to his side, and tries to go back to where he belongs.

But things have changed, he has a new home now, and the Night’s Watch is for life, executed fathers mean nothing here, so Jon reluctantly turns around and follows Grenn, Pyp, and Sam back.

Lord Commander Mormont makes a series of comments that have Jon ducking his head sheepishly. It’s enough to spur him on -- Robb will save the Starks without him, Sansa will be fine, everyone’s lives will move on, and Jon will climb the ranks. Again, this is where he belongs. He’ll only need to repeat it a few more times.

 

.

 

Jon’s out proving himself in a circle of his new brothers vying for blood, his or anyone else’s, they're not fussy. He's sliding his sword through the air, panting with exertion, because this isn't the fights with Robb they staged with make-believe prizes of princesses and titles that demanded respect and power. Jon would win those battles sometimes and for a tiny amount of time they would pretend that Jon is the one with the future so bright it gives him headaches. At the end he would hand the metaphorical crown back to Robb and half of him would be relieved, no more weight, no more expectations, no more repercussions for the name branded on his wrist.

He's out here playing for his place in the group to feel included and then, quick, a flash of pain crashes across his back, having him arch into the air and drop to the ground.

“Who was that?” he demands when he can speak again, because this may be the men with no standing left in Westeros but there's honour even at the Wall, you don't hit a man in the back, everyone knows that.  

He gets the wind knocked out of him again and this time he knows that none of those in the circle had anything to do with it.

“Yer mate’s gettin’ a beating, cragg,” someone shouts, touch too gleeful because here soulmates are ridiculed and having one just means you have feelings and who wants those here.

Now he remembers when Sansa had come running when he had fallen off his horse. As if she had known. And that means -- that means --

It happens again. He gasps -- there's a mix of jeers coming from the circle, a beating on a maid isn't strong enough to do this to a man, but there's someone behind this who’s beating Sansa to the death.

Sam, fat Sam who is too kind and shy for a place such as this, moves forward, worry creasing his face as he separates himself further from the group. He starts to say something but Jon can't hear him over the panic because Sansa should be safe, Sansa should be out of the way, Sansa shouldn't be anywhere near the Lannisters, because that's who must be doing this: Cersei and Tywin and the boy those old enough to remember Aerys are already calling the Second Mad King.

Jon grimaces and gets to his feet. He waves off Sam’s sympathy -- none of this is going to help him within the Men here. Beaten by a punch through the soul.

“The Night’s Watch doesn’t involve itself in the messy matters of the world,” he's told when he makes vague noisier of concern about the conditions in King’s Landing, probably betraying more than he wants as he shuffles from foot to foot.

“I think Sansa’s in trouble,” he tells Sam in a low voice when he's been dismissed from the higher powers. “I need to go to her.”

The thought of leaving the Wall, something he badly wants but can't fathom risking, makes Sam’s eyes go wide, his hand trembling when he says no. “Jon, your vows. You can't.”

But while that's true, he must be able to do _something_ up here.

 

.

 

He practices and practices till his bones scream and his hand thrums through the night. He practices with the images of his Father and his Uncle and all the Starks that came before him. He practices because soulmates might just be a mark on your skin that doesn’t mean anything past the interference of gods but he’s still got that little bit of romance wedged between his ribs and he fights past the idea of futility and thrives on the childlike images of knights and protectors spawned from Sansa’s tales. There’s a part of him that fights and fights to protect her even though he’s the other side of Westeros and all he can really do is rub a hand over the marks where she’s hurt and swear a bloody vengeance against everyone down in the capital.

 

.

  


The War of the Five Kings rages across Westeros. The Starks bear the brunt of the attack, revenge on Robb’s strength in battle doubled back on them as they pick off their family one by one. Bran and Rickon are snatched by the Greyjoys, a petty victory from a boy locked up in a castle for too many years. The news reaches them he’s calling himself Lord of Winterfell. Jon can see him prancing through the halls, making a mockery of the place that made his life as a hostage easier than anywhere else would have.

It makes the fight easier -- Jon climbs the respect of those around him, he doesn’t have to fend off just as many insults as he learns how to make Longclaw work for him and knocks boy after boy out of the ring.

The War rages and the Night’s Watch resolutely turns its back to make remarks about the rumours of the inbred bastard Baratheon the rest of Westeros is subject to and the brothers who turn from a cold childhood to a nasty stalemate, the old man from the Islands who doesn’t have a fight but won’t step down, and the Young Wolf, the one with the beast by his side and too much bravery to end up with the North he wants. When they make these last ones they raise their voice so that Jon can hear but he keeps out of it. They know exactly where he stands but he’s not going to confirm it so they can accuse him of harbouring alliances for the Starks. The Night’s Watch takes no sides, and that’s collectively and individually.

The War rages and Jon keeps his head down as far as is possible when you’re Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard, and no one can decide whether he was a betrayer and whether his son might go the same way.

 

.

 

“Do you have one, Sam?” Jon asks, voice ducked low as they move about the yard in a make-believe fight.

“One what?” Sam makes through his gasps as he leaps from side to side. Jon slows down, goes easier, but not too easy, he can't be seen as slacking off.

Jon makes a gesture to his wrist and Sam’s eyes widen in understanding. “Oh! A name?” He looks around them in a move almost comical. Then he rolls up his sleeve, peels back the ragged cloth. “Gilly,” he says in a whisper that sounds reverential.

“Your father didn't care that you have a soulmate when he sent you here?”

Sam smiles sadly. “High-born ladies don't have names like Gilly. If they're not high-born my father doesn't see the point.”

Jon doesn't remember much about the Tarlys from Septa Mordane’s lessons but from what he's heard from Sam and the sniggers of the other men, Lord Tarly likes to keep up bigger appearances than what he can stand up to.

“My uncle says people come to the Wall to leave their souls behind,” Jon says, in what could be construed as comfort, depending on the recipient.

But Sam sighs. “Maybe she’ll walk into Castle Black on her way home from --” He waves a hand in the direction of the Wall and otherness from beyond. “-- from gods knows where. How can the Gods know we’re meant to be if we’re never given the chance to meet and try it out?”

Here is where Jon spills his story because Sam has to know that you can live in the same castle as your soul mate for your whole lives and it doesn't change a thing. “If I tell you mine, Sam, you won't tell a soul?”

“Who would I tell Jon?” Sam replies truthfully. “Grenn and Pyp would take the piss and no one else comes near us,” which, again, is another truth.

Ghost snuffles a bit at Jon’s exposed arm when he shoves up his sleeve and then he ducks his head and licks over the mark as Jon unwinds his covering. His heart’s beating too quickly which he doesn’t understand because there’s nothing that can be done about his mark, Sansa is who he has, and there’s nothing that Sam can say that Jon hasn’t thought himself. Not that Sam would say anything like that -- he’s too nice for up here.

“Well?” he says, belligerent, when Sam has done nothing but blink at his mark. “Aren’t you going to call me disgusting?”

“Disgusting?” Sam blinks again, fiddles with his own sleeve. Jon doesn’t want anyone to walk over to find them comparing soulmates like a couple of war-torn widows. “I wouldn’t say disgusting, Jon.”

“She’s my sister,” Jon says, because if he doesn’t lay out his defences then Sam will think he’s happy about it, and, okay, yes he is, but there’s also so many reasons why he shouldn’t be.

Sam looks out across the yard. Another search party looking for Benjen has just come in, their demeanor evidence enough that there’s nothing out there. “You Starks,” he says, before Jon can comment on the arrivals. “My Maester would me stories about you Starks. He told me about Bran the Builder and about your connections to the First Men, your duties as Warden of the North, and he told me about direwolves.”

By now Ghost has settled at Jon’s feet, his head heavy and warm. “What about them?”

“They’re pack animals,” he replies, voice lilting like it’s obvious. “Maybe there’s something in your blood that ties you as more than brother and sister -- being in a pack is the closest animals can be, if the gods think you should be with Sansa, perhaps that’s their way of strengthening the family.”

Jon says nothing to this, just nods as though it could be true, but he doesn’t think so.

“This is why you were so worried about Sansa before, wasn’t it?”

“Have you ever felt Gilly being hurt?” Jon asks, low as a couple of men walk past, taking a wide circle to avoid Ghost’s dozing head.

Sam shakes his head. “Not that I know of -- nothing extreme, anyway.”

“If you could feel the way Sansa was being thrown about.” His fist clenches. “The way she was _beaten_. You would break your vows.”

“Her brother will save her,” Sam says, clinging to an optimism Jon’s never possessed. “You’ve heard the way The Young Wolf has been winning battle after battle,” because now the conflict is out in the open, not hidden behind whispers and politics, and news travels far into the mountains.

Jon lets go of the childish notion of wanting to save Sansa himself. There's been no mention of Arya in any of the ravens that have flown North and Jon is working on the ingrained faith that Arya can handle herself, wherever she ends up, but Sansa is softer, gentler, and he worries. He throws his faith into Robb’s love for his family and says a prayer for every member of the Starks before he goes to sleep at night.

 

.

 

When Jon was younger Septa Mordane would tell them tales framed as ghost stories of wildlings beyond the Wall. They live in a chaos separate from the world Jon knows, in small tribes and groups that spread as far as the maps reach. Their Septa spells out their savage ways, their alliances with giants, their hatred for everything South of the Wall. There was always a twist of guilty relief in Jon’s stomach when these stories were told because in a hierarchy bastards come above wildlings, and that’s something Jon clings to for longer than he should.

So Jon grows up learning this and doesn’t think anything different until he’s scaling said Wall into the territory of those he grew up knowing to be different.

They head for Craster’s Keep, the home of a friend of the Night’s Watch, and Jon digs his fingers into his mare’s reins and doesn’t turn back to watch the Wall shrinking behind them. He never thought it could look small but when he gives into the temptation it looks barely taller than a bridge.

  


.

 

Things turn confusing, bloody, messy. Jon escapes with his life which is more than many can say. It’s with a heavy heart that he sits with Mormont into the next life, a mentor in a lonely place.  

 

.

 

The silver lining is, of course, Sam meeting Gilly, a shy girl kept by Craster in his sprawling family set-up that makes even the strongest men wince. Gilly is full of a mixture of fear and determination, a combination that can prove helpful in a runaway attempt.

Gilly’s name is scraped away, a further step of control on Craster’s part, but she remembers the shape of Samwell, one of the few words she knows how to read.

Sam’s face glows.

 

.

 

Jon meets a wildling woman with hair the colour of fire and a temper to match. Jon meets this wildling called Ygritte and he forgets everything he’s learned about them.

 

.

 

“You know nothing, Jon Snow,” Ygritte says, when Jon makes noises about his wrist. “Those marks aren't law. There's nothing stopping you from lying with another woman.”

With the odds of ever seeing Sansa again paired with the likelihood of her being interested in seeing him dropping steadily day by day Jon can't help but agree with her.

And so he kisses this woman who has been kissed by fire and the world doesn’t fall apart and he can’t feel any twinges of a broken heart, so it continues. He’s breaking his vows and he’s playing with his fate but _gods_ , Ygritte has a lifetime of experience ahead of him and he wants to learn everything.

 

.

  


There’s something hopeful about having someone out there whose soul is touched by his. So his is Sansa, his sister and someone he wishes he got to know better, but some people never get to meet their soulmates, he got more than that.

There’s something hopeful about lying here in the snow, Ghost by his side and an arrow in his leg, and Robb has always said how pessimistic he is but Jon can’t be far away from death now.

 

.

 

There’s a war on, as everyone knows. It’s not contained to the Seven Kingdoms and the squabbling of kings any longer, though -- there’s danger bigger than them all creeping across the Wall, the undoing of death and the fragileness of humanity looms.

It breaks into Jon’s world again, this time taking down Ygritte with an arrow that colours the snow around her. Jon holds her in his arms and tears down the thoughts he had about finding happiness elsewhere because he doesn't know anything.

 

.

 

When Robb is killed in an act of evil so twisted and violating of honour Jon throws up into a bucket by his bed. Robb is his best friend. Robb is the boy who wanted to save the world and shape it into something good. Robb is the boy with a heart too big and an arm too strong. Robb is dead and Jon’s world shifts into something darker -- if Robb can be killed the war has spread too far and he fails to see into a future that works.

 

.

  


Ygritte is gone and Jon hasn’t felt lashes on his body for some weeks now so he has enough hope that Sansa has fled King’s Landing and is on a path to somewhere safer.

He distracts himself with work and work and more work until he's sleeping and breathing the plans laid out for the White Walkers and the rapidly dwindling Night’s Watch but it's still a surprise when the men that used to sneer at him vote him Lord Commander.

Look at him now, he wants to say to everyone who came to Winterfell and said _Snow? You’re Ned Stark’s bastard_ and deprived him of any respect beyond that.

He knows that he and Sansa ever meeting again is a dream too stupid to spend time on but he can’t help but think that Lord Commander might just equal knight in her book. When he swings his sword and takes Slynt’s head from his shoulders he knows that this is what she wants.

 

.

 

The White Walkers are a problem no one is taking seriously. The Kings are concerned with the throne that will become meaningless when the Wall breaks and they focus on the whispers of forgotten queens and dragons from across the water. The Starks all almost forgotten -- too many dead and the remaining not doing much better. Jon thinks he would have heard if Sansa was dead, or he would have felt it, because if he gets the twinge when she cuts her finger he can't imagine getting the life squeezed out of her or the dagger in her belly or whatever other ghostly feeling they could think to inflict on her.

The Night’s Watch team up with unexpected allies: first the wildlings and then Stannis Baratheon, a King with more sense and forethought than the rest of them.

Stannis saves the battle in the final second, his trained army circling Mance Ryder, disgraced ex-soldier, wannabe King -- Stannis hates those who call themselves king when it hasn’t been proven. Ryder dies on a fiery stake, a sense of dignity at the end that Jon admires.

He shakes Stannis’s hand when it’s over. “Thank you,” he says, doesn’t allow Stannis’s strong eye contact to sway him “I appreciate it.”

Stannis voices what Jon’s been saying from the start. “There’s no point ruling a kingdom about to be destroyed by the dead risen. We have a while to go yet -- I think you and I can work out an agreement that will benefit us both,” he offers.

“I'm Northern, through and through,” he tells Stannis when Stannis suggests moving South, helping him with his campaign for the throne, but Jon is like his brother, the North has no interest in matters beyond the Neck. “My brother wanted the North to rule itself.”

“Your brother died for his cause and if you’re wise, Jon, you’ll allow it to die with him.” Somehow the way Stannis says this doesn’t make Jon want to punch him -- Jon remembers hearing about Stannis holding-out during the siege at Storm’s End. He has patience and he has experience and maybe he’s worth listening to, if only for his army.

“Robb was almost there --” Jon continues anyway.

Stannis hesitates, thinks some more things over and then says: “If you give me some of your men to bulk up my army in the South and we continue this arrangement, we can work something out regarding the North’s place within the Seven Kingdoms.”

Jon’s not got much knowledge of the political shift this could have but it sounds like Robb’s aim and it has a ring of some things Father would say when he thought no one was listening. “For now, we need to get to Winterfell.”

“There’s nothing there,” he dismisses. “Ramsay Snow is running it into the ground.”

“It’s the stronghold of the North, Stannis. You need it.”

This is accepted with a nod. “I can offer you Winterfell, Jon, after we recapture it.”

“Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa,” Jon refuses barely giving Stannis time to finish. “But I’ll help you where I can.”

 

.

 

There are whispers of Littlefinger in the Vale with a dark-haired maid that bears striking resemblance to Catelyn Tully. With Davos Seaworth down at White Harbor, he is then told to make his way further south to validate the rumours. Jon had thought it would have taken more force to get Stannis to relay this message to his Hand but Stannis is always thinking ahead, always playing the game he hates, and he knows Sansa is valuable. Jon doesn’t agree with his motivations but he’s grateful for the raven.

 

.

 

Plans are at a standstill until they hear confirmation of Sansa’s whereabouts. Having Jon with them is a strong enough offence but another Stark, a trueborn Stark, with much more solid ties to Winterfell is what Stannis is really after. It’ll give them another insight into the lands around Winterfell as well as the castle itself and it’ll reunite brother and sister, but Jon doesn’t think Stannis cares so much about that.

Two weeks creeps into three and then four and then --

“Ser Davos is back!” someone shouts and everyone turns. Davos respects Stannis too much to come back empty-handed so Jon drops what he's doing and follows the rest of the men into the yard, all eyes on the opening gate.

“How’s he gonna know it's her?” someone says in a whisper that carries. Someone shushes them and Jon should probably do something about the question that's undermining his authority as Lord Commander, but he's preoccupied at the moment. He's watching the gate for the sister he lost and the sister he found and the sister his soul has divided and grown with.

But he hears another whisper and this one isn't so innocently curious -- he turns his head and that's when --

A hush drops over the yard, a marking of a moment of two Starks meeting in a world everyone thought had torn them apart. But the Starks rise, that was always the moral of Father’s stories, and here’s Jon climbed to the top of the outliers of Westeros and here is his sister, Sansa Stark, the deserving Lady of Winterfell and the bearer of the many other sides of this war.

Sansa is different from the last time Jon saw her. She holds herself tall, towering above Davos, her hair plaited in a no-nonsense way unlike the intricate Southern styles she practised for hours when they were young. She turns to say something to the knight beside her and that’s when Jon catches the image of Catelyn, a Catelyn marked by a war she never made it through.

“Lady Sansa does not look much like you, my lord,” Grenn says. “You’re sure that’s her?”

And Jon says, “Sansa is Lady Catelyn’s double --” but before he says the rest of the long-quoted explanation Sansa breaks away from her group and Jon moves forward, pace quickening as he reaches, and he can feel the eyes of many on them. “Sansa!” he calls, one of disbelief, and then she’s gasping and her arms are around him and this -- this is what’s been missing. To hold someone from his family again, to hold Sansa is something he never dared wish for, and now she’s here and things are going to progress, he’s going to get Winterfell back for her.

He leads them away from the crowd, his hand loose on her wrist, careful of the rumours he half doesn’t want to hear confirmed.

“You look so different, Jon,” and even her _voice_ is different, steadier, deeper, measured as though she thinks out everything twice before she lets it out. “Ser Davos tells me you’re the Lord Commander now.”

There, look, she’s smiling a little, she’s proud of Jon, her bastard brother. He shrugs, plays it off as less than it is, because for all his faith in them he never truly believed that being in the presence of your soul mate can make the world a brighter place but the sun is shining and everything looks a tiny bit more real than it did this morning.

They talk about Stannis and they step around Father and they make promises they're not sure they can keep about going home.

“You must be starving,” Jon says, eyes on the way Sansa is starting to slouch, the mask she’s been upholding slipping.

The other Sansa, the old Sansa, would have played it off, a lady doesn't demand food, she waits for everyone to be hungry and follows to the hall. But Sansa nods her head, a desperate smile pulling at her mouth. “Oh, Jon, yes. Brienne and I have been --” She breaks off, ducks her head in a laugh. “We've had a lot of ideas about this moment.”

Jon joins her in laughing. “Well, don't get your hopes up. We don't have much here.”

“That's fine,” Sansa says, and something from their childhood shines through. “I have a good imagination.”

“You were always the one coming up with the stories when we were young,” Jon says, leading her across the yard to the tower, his arm linked with hers in a way that is disguised by their furs but is enough to calm the way Jon’s heart has stumbled.

“And you were the willing knight,” Sansa replies, tone easy. For all that they’ve ran for each other, for all that they’ve missed each other, the last two Starks, there’s a shiver of awkwardness hovering around them. “You always saved me,” Sansa pushes on, the words almost too heavy as they climb the steps to Jon’s room.

“Unless I was the monster,” Jon feels the need to remind her. More times than not Robb was the knight while Jon was relegated to villain or carriage. Jon can appreciate the want to gloss over certain memories.

“There are far worse monsters out there than your impressions of one, Jon,” Sansa says but her face has turned away from him, inspecting the room, so he can’t see her expression. “Thank you for letting me stay here.”

“Don't be stupid, Sansa, this is the safest place for you.”

Her eyes flash to him, then, and then she does something that resembles a smile but lacks most of the warmth. “What does that say about the state of Westeros?”

They could argue here but Jon is tired and that inexplicable joy hasn't budged from his throat since Sansa got here. “You know more about it than most,” is what he says, and he doesn't know the whole story but he's heard enough ravens to know that his hands itch to take the heads of half the South.

“We all have our stories, Jon,” and then she manages another smile, this one truer than the last, and things fade into something a little softer. “This room is bigger than I expected.”

“Nothing but the best for Lord Commander,” Jon says, teasing and humble.

“I noticed there's one higher up.” Sansa makes a circuit of the room, skirting the bed in the corner, hand lingering on the table with Jon’s belongings strewn across it.

“The King’s better than Lord Commander,” Jon tells her, laughing at the way she rolls her eyes. “Stannis is better than the rest I can assume. He's the only one who turned up.”

“I prayed for him to win the Battle of Blackwater,” Sansa admits in a whisper. Even here she's wary of being overheard by Lannisters. Jon can't imagine how they justified the beatings -- Sansa has always been cleverer than she lets on, she won't have said the wrong thing. “I prayed for him and he let me down.”

“I believe in him, Sansa,” which is most you can say about someone. “He's going to help us take back Winterfell from the Boltons.”

She thinks this over for a long moment, a tiny crease appearing between her eyes, and Jon would give up his command here to know what she's thinking. “Are you coming, Jon?”

The Night’s Watch can do better than him. They need someone whose heart and soul are whole, who can focus on the enormous tasks that are coming. Jon’s attention has been divided from the beginning when he woke up eleven and tied to another. He takes a leap and nods. Relief spreads across Sansa’s face. She takes a step towards him -- there's a reason men in the South have risked lands to do good by her. Jon does more than any of them ever did and opens his arms, the movement familiar already as she moves to fit against him.

“Did you hear about Bran and Rickon?” she mumbles into his neck. “He took their home from around them and punished them for it.”

“I know,” Jon murmurs back. His hand runs along her back hesitantly in a bid of comfort. “We’re going to get it back.”

 

.

 

After the steward has come with the soup and the measly pile of bread that Sansa chokes down with queries about Brienne of Tarth and if food has been provided for her they make moves to retire for the night. There are strips of sun bleeding through the clouds still but Jon won’t be of any use tonight.

“You can have my bed, Sansa,” he says, gesturing to the poor excuse for a bed and the direwolf decorating it. Ghost hasn’t left Sansa’s side since she arrived, closer to her than to anyone else who can come near Jon. He was that way when they were younger as well, always seeking out Lady above the others. “I was sorry to hear about Lady.”

Sansa stiffens; her hand reaches out automatically for Ghost who leans into her touch. “Arya was right -- those direwolves were meant for us. After everything else that’s happened, it’s the hole from Lady that stills bleeds strongest.”

“Well, Ghost is taken with you,” Jon points out the obvious. “I know he’s not yours truly but he can --”

She cuts him off. “Stay here tonight, Jon. Please?”

When they were younger Jon and Arya would mutter angrily as Sansa would get her own way every single time they played and every single time everyone would side with her. Jon used to think that Father and Lady Stark and Robb and every other person in the castle was foolish for being caught by her, held in her tight little fist, but now she’s here and she’s looking at him, eyes wide, mouth a thin line, and he thinks he would say yes to everything.

He makes up a bed on the floor from scraps of blankets. Sansa’s offers him more from the bed but never suggests he joins her for which Jon is grateful. These are baby steps.

 

.

  


“I follow Lady Sansa,” Brienne says when Jon finally gets a chance to meet her. True to her word she’s been Sansa’s shadow over the last few days as Jon has counsel after counsel with Stannis regarding their upcoming move. Most of the Men are coming with them as well as a group of wildlings and the rest of Stannis’s army.

“But Sansa trusts King Stannis and you don’t,” Jon points out, trying out the diplomacy Father taught him and feeling like he’s failing miserably. “Doesn’t that make things difficult?”

“Stannis has to pay for what he’s done,” Brienne replies, almost a recital. “He’s no King to me.”

“He’s all we’ve got -- Sansa and I are going home and he’s getting us there. If you’re coming with us there can be no plots to kill him afterwards, Ser.”

“You leave little room for argument, Lord Commander,” she says, eyes glinting. “The red woman isn’t coming, is she?”

“No,” and here is where Jon agrees wholeheartedly with Brienne. Melisandre has big ideas and no restraint to carry them out. She waggles her fingers at Jon, walks them down his arm, all while whispering about the Lord Reborn and Jon’s role in it all if he only lets himself believe. “She’s staying here.”

“I can restrain myself,” Brienne decides with the air of someone reluctant to agree.

They shake hands to bind it. Brienne’s grip is strong -- Jon has a flush of relief that should he not survive the upcoming battle Sansa will be in a safe hands.

 

.

  


“You and Lady Sansa were close when you were younger?” Stannis asks, a strange question compared to his steel focus.

“Not really, Your Grace,” Jon admits, like it’s something bad not to be close with your siblings. He’s heard the stories of the Baratheon brothers and the chaos making up two branches of the warring kings is enough to fill in the gaps. “Why?”

“You’ve changed since she got here,” he notes.

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time.” He worries for a second that he sounds defensive. “I’m just glad she’s alive.”

Stannis eyes him still and he worries that he didn’t imagine the drop to Jon’s wrist. “She’s a smart woman, Jon. She has to be to have made it this far in a place like King’s Landing."

That sounds like approval, in whatever form Jon wishes to take it as. He doesn’t view Stannis as the King of his dreams but he’s the King Westeros needs at the moment and that’s enough.

 

.

 

Jon tells Sansa she’s his soulmate when it gets to the point where it’s constantly sitting at the back of his throat and he’s afraid he’s going to spit it out or choke on it. With the move to Winterfell hanging over them and the possibility of dying raising its head again, Jon doesn’t want to lie in the snow alone and wish he’d said something. He’s in the position where he’s got nothing to lose.

“You’re my soulmate,” he blurts out, his side pressed up against Sansa’s in his tiny room on his tiny bed. It’s perhaps too intimate a setting for such a conversation but something Castle Black lacks is privacy and so they make do.

The words hover in the space between them for a second before Sansa’s eyes fill up and she’s raising her own wrist, a wordless confirmation of her own.

“Oh, Jon, you’re mine too,” she says in just as much an untidy rush as he.

They compare wrists -- both pale, scarred, their names lining up with each other. After all this time, to see the three letters of his name decorating Sansa’s skin, to know that she has been with him throughout everything, the other part of his soul, is enough for a smile to grow into a burst of laughter. Being a pessimist means happiness comes as a surprise -- he leans into it, watches Sansa’s joy in the way she edges closer, her hands touching his arm, shoulder, curving his cheek.

There’s a war on, one that has wrecked their worlds for the worst, but here, in this tiny room at the edge of the world, there’s a chink of light so bright Jon has to close his eyes.

“I suspected,” he says, fingers tracing the J, unable to keep his eyes off it. Sansa’s feeling regretful, we should have said sooner, so much could have been avoided, but, as much pain as it has meant, Jon thinks this needed this -- they’re both different people now, for better or for worse. They’re older, smarter; they weren’t ready before but now they are, so when Sansa says they should have said something sooner Jon gently disagrees and voices his suspicions anyway. “When I hurt my arm and you came --”

Sansa frowns, looking back to remember, and then her face clears. “Oh, Jon, did you feel my...?” she trails off, back hunched, as though she was somehow at fault.

“I wanted to leave to find you immediately,” Jon admits, everything rumbling out.

“But your vows.”

“But my vows. I trusted Robb.”

Robb’s a hard subject still, and Lady Catelyn gone too in one fell swoop. Jon’s arm reaches out and Sansa rests her head against his shoulder.

“Robb was always the bravest,” Sansa whispers. “He was always so reckless.”

Neither of them wonder aloud what their brave, reckless brother would think of this: his two favourite siblings made as one.

 

.

 

Jon feels at peace in a way he doesn’t think he ever has. He tries to remember that moment when he was eleven and he read Sansa’s name for the first time but he can’t reconcile the fear and worry that came with it to the way he’s feeling now.

But he’s still Lord Commander, he’s still got a lot of people’s lives in his hands, so although there is the occasional sly remark about a spring in his step that doesn’t exist, things carry on as normal.

“Maester Aemon wants to see you, my Lord,” a steward reports, disgruntled at being messenger boy, but Jon climbs the steps, wonders what it could be, and then his life is changed once again.

 

.

  


They start their journey two days later. Horses are loaded up with supplies and with people, weapons are strapped onto bodies, furs wrapped around them. The gates close with a clang behind them -- Jon takes a last look at Castle Black, the place that made him, and refuses to let his mind wander into the future.

As Lord Commander and as an asset to the King, Jon rides upfront with Stannis and Davos, Ghost trotting alongside of them.

“How useful is your direwolf?” Stannis asks, takes his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Ghost.

“Have you not heard of Grey Wind ripping out the throats of Lannisters on the battlefield?”

“Being of one pack doesn’t make them similar,” Stannis replies, and Jon knows that can apply elsewhere. With the secret Aemon told him sitting high in his chest he makes a noise of agreement.

“Ghost knows what he needs to do.”

Something that could almost be called a smirk, if the edges were sharper and the man different, curves Stannis’s mouth. “I’ll get you home, Jon,” Stannis says, a touch more sentimental than Jon has heard him. This is the King he’s glad found them.

 

.

 

Telling Sansa that he is not her sibling but her cousin, that his mother is Lyanna Stark and his father Rhaegar Targaryen, forces Jon to decide how he feels about the revelation. He doesn’t feel any different, still prefers to the cold to heat, to put it bluntly, and when Sansa asks about the throne he doesn’t hesitate before he’s shaking his head, no, he doesn’t want it.

“I don’t think soulmates have ever made sense to anyone,” Jon says when Sansa applies this new knowledge to their situation. “I thought you hated me,” he adds, and Sansa’s flushes, ashamed, but that’s not what he meant.

“We were never each other’s favourite siblings,” she replies, a touch defensive, and Jon loves his younger siblings, but she’s right -- it was always Robb.

Their first kiss is simple, a natural extension to their assuring they never hated each other, it’s always been complicated with them. Sansa’s lips are warm against his own despite the shivering of the cold. He leans in, doesn't push too much, but Sansa breaks away, frowns a little. She still won’t talk about Joffrey or Tyrion or Littlefinger; Jon doesn’t want to push her but he wants to care of it for her.

He opens his mouth to reassure her that everything is fine, that he loves her, but she beats him to it. “I’ve heard so much about soulmates’ first kiss,” she whispers, lifts a hand to touch her mouth where Jon’s has just left. “I never imagined it would feel like that.”

Jon kisses her again and his whole body quiets, a thrumming in his heart that he never noticed ceasing into a calm. He didn’t know he was waiting for this but here in the snow, Sansa pressed against him, her mouth warm and wet on his, this is worth the pain of everything else.

  


.

  


The battle is easier than Jon expected -- if easier means losing less men than he expected and reaching Ramsay Snow with little to no casualties. It’s easy when Ramsay grins at him through bloody teeth and makes spitting remarks about the Starks, about Sansa, about Jon’s parentage. If only he knew, Jon wants to say, when he stops the talking with a drive of his sword through his throat. He could have made this messy, drawn it out like he deserves, but it’s time for this to be over.

He finds Sansa after the surrendering of Snow’s men, cowardly and wanting to please now that their makeshift Lord is dead. Jon finds Sansa in the corridor outside the great hall. She looks to him for confirmation and when he nods, holds up a tattered Stark flag someone threw him, she cries, arms around his neck and her hair in his mouth.

They’ve said it enough over the reunion and the journey but this is them home, now for the next part.

 

.

 

Despite the kissing, the laughter, the whispers of love into his ear, Jon doesn’t expect Sansa to want to make their bond official. They’re not siblings any more, that’s true, but cousins are not much better and not many people even know the news. To the people of Winterfell it is still thought that Jon and Sansa are both Ned Stark’s children.

But this is a Sansa who has lived too much and who values happiness and her heart above the other things she used to worry about.

She asks him late one night in her solar, plans for the rebuilding spread across the table, the candle low. “Are you ever going to make an honest woman of me, Jon?”

His finger, counting the squares for the bricks, skitters across the page. “You want to marry me?”

“You sound surprised.” Sansa moves her chair closer to Jon’s. “Of course I want to marry you, Jon. Unless,” and now she smiles, confident, “you don’t want to marry me.”

“You’ve taken all the surprise out of it,” Jon says, leaning in for a kiss. In the tales, soulmates meeting is described as an addictive experience, one that causes the two people to never want to stray far from the other. Jon always thought that was overdramatic, silly, but here he is, his mouth pressing a kiss to Sansa’s cheek, dizzy with her. “Marry me, Sansa?”

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting this,” Sansa teases. She cups his face, leans in close, eyes steady with his. “I love you, Jon. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

 

.

 

 

They are wed three days later with Stannis, Davos, and a handful of his men present. Brienne stands to Sansa’s side, hands her the cloak that is decorated with a direwolf as Jon covers her with an identical one. Despite keeping Jon’s parentage under wraps, they haven’t been discreet about the way their relationship has evolved since they were last here as children but there have been no cryings out for them to step down as Lord and Lady of Winterfell and so they take that as an approval and they stand in their godswood, joined as one.

Jon’s hands are bare of his gloves, his scarred burnt hand holding Sansa’s, and their wrists are no longer suffocated by cloth. As they kiss Jon runs a finger over his name on Sansa’s skin and thinks yes, this feels right.

  
  



End file.
